Arctic researchers burn off methane plumes

Methane gas that's been stored for millennia in the permafrost of the Arctic is
beginning to be released into the atmosphere as climate change
thaws the ground.

A team of researchers has
identified 150,000 sites across Alaska and Greenland where
these plumes are making their way to the surface below, settling
below the ice of frozen ponds and lakes. They did what any
self-respecting scientist would do when confronted with plumes of
highly flammable gas: they set fire to them.

In the embedded video, Katey
Walter Anthony from the University of Fairbanks describes the
problem and how the bubbles of methane form underneath lake ice.
Skip to about a minute in, and you'll see the explosive results of
what happens when these bubbles are freed from the ice and then set
fire to.

There's no real scientific justification for the pyromania, but
it nicely illustrates the vast quantities of this gas that are
being newly released into the atmosphere. There are many sources of
atmospheric methane, including landfill and agriculture, and it's hard to track what proportion comes
from the recent decomposition of biomass and which has been
locked away for centuries in the earth.

Anthony has developed a technique, however, which could yield
some insight into that question. She examined the ratio of
different isotopes of carbon in the methane molecules, and by
comparing the proportion of radioactive isotopes, was able to work
out which had been stored for millennia and which were more
recent.

Her sampling showed that some of the plumes found in Arctic
lakes were releasing ancient methane, whereas some were emitting
much younger gas -- likely to have been formed through trees and
other plant matter falling into lakes and then decaying beneath the
ice.

"If this relationship holds true for other regions where
sedimentary basins are at present capped by permafrost, glaciers
and ice sheets, such as northern West Siberia, rich in natural gas
and partially underlain by thin permafrost predicted to degrade
substantially by 2100, a very strong increase in methane carbon
cycling will result, with potential implications for climate
warming feedbacks," she wrote in a paper (.pdf) published in Nature Geoscience.

Despite the far lower concentration of methane in the
atmosphere, it's the second-most important greenhouse gas as it can trap considerably more heat than
carbon dioxide is able to. After a few years of stability in the
mid-00s the concentration of the gas now appears to be rising
again, reaching more than 1800 parts per billion in 2011. In 1984,
the concentration was just 1640 parts per billion.

"The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, and has
many methane sources that will increase as the temperature rises,"
Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway, who is also involved in Arctic
methane research, told
the BBC. "This is yet another serious concern: the warming will
feed the warming."

Edited by Olivia Solon

Comments

It's Me-Thane not Meth-ane!

David

May 23rd 2012

In reply to David

That is an american anunsiation.

Rob

May 24th 2012

Global warming is a scam perpetrated by Goldman Sachs so they can trade carbon credits on the NY stock exchange, and vested interests have helped incorporate this deception into the culture.

Harry

May 24th 2012

In reply to Harry

Conspiracy theories are a scam perpetrated by individuals unwilling to accept potential implications of changes in their physical environment on their lifestyles and based on non-sustainable evidence.